Hobby Henchmen Spring RTT

We have completed our first event of 2025 so I thought I would do a little write up of my experience of setting it up and being the TO for the first time ever. It also gives me an excuse to mercilessly mock Luke as well.

This is the first of six events this year, and if they all go this well we will have them even more regularly next year - the GT is on the 8th and 9th March and tickets can be bought here: https://www.hobbyhenchmen.com/event-details/hobby-henchmen-spring-gt

We had a few last minute drop outs, as is normal, in the week running up to the event so Chris was rotated in and out several times until we filled the last spot and everyone turned up! Second time in a row and no day-of dropouts is amazing. Unfortunately Leo's back (which is clearly better now) went during Game 1 and he had to drop with Chris stepping in to take his spot and ensure we have an opponent for everyone.

Having two of us there as TO allowed us to always have a lack minute back up player and certainly took the stress out of it.

My least favourite part of the event was getting up at 6:45 on a Sunday - it is criminal and shouldn't be allowed. I need my wrangling sleep to be at full capacity for my week dealing with the general degeneracy of the HH WhatsApp chats!

Chris delivered on the final pieces of terrain after months of printing and some serious difficulties that popped up during that time that I thought had us boned. This meant sorting and getting the terrain out took longer than it will do in the future and now we simply pray that UKTC don't make radical changes to their tourney pack!

On a side note about that - we are getting individual boxes for each tables terrain so people can just pick up a box and take it to the table rather than having to solve the terrain jigsaw puzzle before starting their games!

The little gift bags were well received and we will certainly look to continue with surprises in the future. Intros and gigantic clock ticking we got off to Game 1 and it was pretty smooth sailing from then on. Turns out I quite like just hanging out watching games and wandering around keeping up to date on each one.

Across the day there were probably less than 10 judge calls so it was super chill, the main big one being poor Jack's make or break it moment in Game 3. An explosion caused by a BS fail against Daemons caused another of his units to go below half strength and also having to BS, losing him primary. Savagery.

The only weird half an hour for me was sitting on stage and my brain starting to tune into like five different tables' conversation simultaneously and hit me with like 30 minutes of an anxiety flare up because it felt like my brain was breaking. A little flirt with Lisa and I was back in the game!

Chris P won Best Sports and he is a lovely chap, taking Kroot Jail with a smile on his face and smashing Angus' back doors in.

Max R won best painted with absurdly good looking CSM - when I first saw some weathered hazard striped on a Venomcrawler I genuinely thought it must be a printed sticker or something.

Jamie, with Daemons, came 3rd (just edging out Jack of a podium), Mike coming 2nd after dropping an embarrassing 12 points across the three games, and Ross nailing 1st place with his Krooty bois. Congratulations to you all!

I think the only thing I really want to improve is the voting for Best Sports and Best Painted. I want people's final opponent to be in consideration for it so it has to be done near the end of the day but I could also tell I was getting in people's way trying to get votes during the most important game of the day. The Best Painted option is easy - just put up a big QR code for people to use during the actual viewing of armies and allowing them to vote electronically right away. I could do the same with a QR on the tables and just remind everyone at the end of the game but I know it will decrease vote participation overall. If you have any ideas let me know!!